Community reactions against organizations can be driven by negative information spread through a diffusion process that is distinct from the diffusion of organizational practices. Bank panics offer a classic example of selective diffusion of negative information. Bank panics involve widespread bank runs, although a low proportion of banks experience a run. We develop theory on how organizational similarity, community similarity, and network proximity create selective diffusion paths for resistance against organizations.

Do police treat religious-based protest events differently than secular ones? Drawing on data from more than 15,000 protest events in the United States (1960 to 1995) and using quantitative methods, we find that law enforcement agents were less likely to show up at protests when general religious actors, actions, or organizations were present. Rather than reflecting privileged legitimacy, we find that this protective effect is explained by religious protesters’ use of less threatening tactics at events.

This article investigates whether men’s sexual behavior is influenced by the sex of their firstborn children and, if so, at what stage of firstborns’ development this occurs. Using standardized data from 37 Demographic and Health Surveys (N = 61,801), I compare the sexual activities, sexually transmitted infection symptoms, and sexual ideologies of fathers with firstborn sons and fathers with firstborn daughters. I also explore whether fathers’ attitudes mediate the effects of firstborn sex.

Cancer is a life-changing condition for many American seniors, and a growing body of literature is assessing the mental health implications of living with the disease. This article builds from the well-known buffering hypothesis with insights from recent cancer research to investigate whether social networks moderate the association between cancer and mental health for older men and women.

This article examines mental health differences among migrants who emigrated from both armed conflict countries and non–conflict countries versus native-born Canadians. We propose that the impact of armed conflict on mental health depends on defining characteristics of the conflict. Our analysis of migrants to Toronto, Canada, suggests that exposure to major intrastate conflicts have long-term impacts on depression among women and anxiety levels among men after migration. We assess the role of different stages and types of stress proliferation in explaining these differences.

Social capital theorists claim that belonging to a densely knit social network creates a shared identity, mutually beneficial exchange, trust, and a sense of belonging in that group. Taken together with the empirical research on the importance of social support and social integration for individuals’ well-being, there is reason to expect that the density of one’s personal social network should be positively related to well-being.

American Indians experience forms of domination and resist them through a wide range of decolonizing processes that are commonly overlooked, misidentified, or minimally analyzed by American sociology. This inattention reflects the naturalizing use of minoritizing frameworks regarding tribal members and ethnic rather than political conceptions of American Indian nationhood, membership, and identity.

This article discusses the potential of personalizing sociology curriculum, specifically in Medical Sociology courses, to increase student engagement and sociological awareness. Based on our experiences offering separate Medical Sociology courses at a large public research university and a small private teaching university, respectively, we outline emotional techniques we have each employed—separately and together—in our classes to facilitate student engagement, critical awareness, and medical coming out processes in our classrooms.